If you travel by train you know …
Digging for the origin of the concept of virtual transition, I found a legal document from 1915 and, as I was travelling by train, I understood that it is a fact of common sense …
The tangent method of bending turnouts
A (bit) more accurate alternative method to calculate the equivalent radius for bending turnouts is based on the tangent defined by the crossing angle…
The versine formula and its limitations
Where the author eloquently discusses the versine formula and the accuracy loss implied by ignoring a historically insignificant term of its equation, demonstrates an easily replicable CAD check of this inaccuracy, and reveals the EXACT versine formula.
The article I don’t want to write – Virtual Transition forensics
In 1952 the Virtual Transition principle was presented to the Railway Engineering Division of ICE.
Later it became part of the Handbook No 3 Railway Curves.
When a non-compliant alignment is also so compliant …
Long time ago, a good friend of mine, had an interesting design experience. He designed a non-compliant alignment and, after slueing it about 1mm, he turned it into compliant. The magic is described here …
Why don’t we use angular speed and acceleration for railway track curving calculations?
Have you ever wondered why …
(my plan was to publish this a few days ago – sorry for the delay)
Should we change the Virtual Transition length?
A different kind of article … Antescript Several times, in the last ten years, I started to write articles with this title. The only draft I kept is so convoluted and confusing that I might even decide to publish it. I have a few answers to this question. There is one I hesitate to put…
snippet – Track realignment using involutes
Hallade was not alone. His method of track alignment rectification is by far the most used and known but there are quite few other methods for rectification and even proper realignment. One of these methods used a strange curve called involute (or evolvent). It was first described in this book from 1927. Die Absteckung von…
A railway track blog 